The best under £350 phones available right now

by
Jay Jay8/18/2016 1:57:16 PM

8/18/2016 1:57:16 PM

Premium phones with flagship specifications and mid-range pricing are no longer hard to find these days. With the arrival of the likes of OnePlus, Lenovo and Huawei, it's not hard to find a decent phone for yourself without paying much for it.

We take a look at some of the best smartphones priced at under £350 which will offer you the best possible performance, battery life and design factors in the market.

OnePlus 3

Whenever we think of flagship specs inside a mid-range phone, the first phone that comes to our mind is the OnePlus 3. Initially available at £309, the phone's price has increased to £329 but that has not stopped it from still being among the best value phones in the market. What's more, the phone is available to buy unlocked and you will need no invitation from OnePlus to get it.

Despite featuring an OxygenOS custom OS based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, OnePlus 3 surprisingly comes with no added bloatware, which also means that the custom OS may actually help you customise rather than taking up precious storage space in your device. Thanks to the phone's Dual NANO SIM support, you will be able to use two networks at a time as well.

Despite its price being equivalent to most mid-range phones, a look at the specifications of OnePlus 3 will make you realise that it easily fits the bill of a premium smartphone. The phone comes with an impressive 6GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 820 processor offering up to 2.2 GHz of power, a 5.5-inch Full HD Optic AMOLED display and a 16-MP rear camera with HD Mode, Auto HDR and Dynamic De-noise along with Optical Image Stabilization and Electronic Image Stabilization. It also features a powerful 3,000 mAh battery which can be boosted with OnePlus' Dash Charge technology which replenishes more than 60% of the phone's battery in 30 minutes.

Vodafone Smart Platinum 7

Launched in June, Vodafone Smart Platinum 7 is a superior version of the impressive Smart Ultra 7 phone and offers the best of specifications and features which deserve more than its price tag. Priced at £300, Smart Platinum 7 features a .5-inch 2K AMOLED display, 32GB of internal storage, 3GB of RAM, an octa-core Snapdragon 652 processor, a fingerprint sensor and a MicroSD slot capable of accommodating up to 128GB of additional storage.

The phone also packs a 3,000 mAh battery which will let you run it for as long as two days on a single charge and Qualcomm's latest Quick Charge 3.0 technology will also allow the phone to charge from zero to 50 per cent in 30 minutes. The 16-MP rear camera features super zoom, Phase-Detection Auto Focus and zero second shutter lag while the 8-megapixel front camera comes with LED flash to let you take better selfies in low light conditions. Apart from supporting 4G+ speeds, the phone will also let you access virtual reality content on its AMOLED display.

BlackBerry DTEK50

Even though the Priv, BlackBerry's first Android phone with BB10 software, cost a lot more than £350, the Canadian enterprise recently introduced the DTEK 50, a £275 Android phone featuring BB10 to cater to both corporate as well as mid-range phone buyers and those who would like their phones to feature the best security platforms to protect their data.

Running the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS, DTEK50 comes with end-to-end encryption of user data like pictures, contacts and videos and also comes with built-in malware protection and will let you back-up, wipe and restore your data at any time. Probably the best feature in DTEK50 is that BlackBerry will pass on Android security patches to users' handsets as soon as they are made available by Google, a marked transition from the current practise of most OEMs who pass on security patches three months after they are made available.

Both the Priv and the DTEK50 will also come with added protection against malicious apps, scareware notifications and insecure Wi-Fi connections. The devices will also feature Full Enterprise Mobility Management Support along with Android™ for Work and Google Play™ for Work services. Apart from Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS, you will also find a range of BlackBerry services in the DTEK50 like BlackBerry Intelligent Keyboard, BlackBerry Hub and a Customizable BlackBerry Convenience Key.

Manufactured by TCL Corporation, DTEK50 features a 5.2-inch Full HD display protected by a scratch resistant screen with oleophobic coating. It also features an octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor, a MicroSD slot capable of taking up as much as 2TB of additional data, a 13MP rear camera with Phase Detection Auto Focus and a dual-tone LED flash and an 8MP front camera. Weighing a mere 135g, the phone also comes with 16GB of internal storage, 3GB of RAM, a MicroUSB 2.0 port, a 2,610 mAh battery along with NFC (Android Beam, Tap and Pay and Tap and Go), FM Radio, 4G Mobile Hotspot and GPS support.

Lenovo Moto G4 Plus

Just like the OnePlus 3, Lenovo's Moto G4 Plus is yet another phablet featuring the best of specifications but is available even cheaper at prices starting from £199.99 inclusive of VAT.